For those of you who believe that college football playoff expansion will do nothing but enhance the regular season experience by making it more meaningful, tell me how well you think the experience of this year’s Georgia basketball season would translate in that regard.
In other words, last year, if you were told the football team’s postseason hopes were still on life support before the Tech game, would that have been sufficient to keep your interest level higher than it would have been ordinarily?
Get The Picture 
Is it still basketball season?
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if so, must be women’s.
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No, they haven’t been “in the hunt” since we choked that program’s budget, too.
We are now near the bottom of the SEC in spending for women’s basketball.
http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/#/compare/search
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Bowl season use to be a LOT of fun pre-BCS. But the bowls ruined it. I remember when Miami won the national title after the 1983 season (I think) after coming into the bowls ranked 5th. Every top bowl mattered. Some people wondered if Auburn would get the nod but they didn’t score a touchdown in their win against Michigan.
Anyway, the bowls were a lot of fun to watch as they were all interconnected. Through the season, as a UGA fan, I was rooting against teams ranked higher than UGA and had an interest in all the other games being played in the top 20.
Then the bowls started signing colleges up too early. I remember when the Sugar Bowl convinced an 8-0 Virginia team to come and then they promptly lost their last 3 games. Not too long after that the BCS was born.
If we had to go to a playoff, the top 6 makes the most sense to me followed by the top 8. Anything more waters down the regular season way too much. Less, leaves out conference champions. 8 seems too many but 4 isn’t enough.
The old bowl system would have been improved if the bowls had been forced to wait until the regular season was over to invite visiting teams.
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I have been advocating a return to “Bowl ‘n’ Poll” since they started the BCS crap. Not only should they have waited until after Conference Championship games, they also needed to get rid of the conference affiliations. If you want a great match-up, pay for it. I’ll give a great example. The game everyone wanted to see after the 2007 season was UGA vs USC. USC vs Illinois and UGA vs Hawaii were both absolute duds.
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I don’t think 6 will work. After the first round, that would leave three.Need either 2, 4, 8, or 16 for it to work out. 16 would extend the season too much, two would be the BCS all over again…so its 4 or 8.
I wish they would shit-can the whole thing and go to the old, bowl system and let the chips fall away..pre-bcs if you will. It was more fun and gave us a lot to argue about when we had split or co- championships.
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1st round bye weeks for the top 2. It keeps the rankings important and creates debate on how the top really are.
4 teams or 8 plus diminishes the regular season far more than a 6 team playoff.
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*who the top 2 really are
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Play in game. Lowest 4 seeded teams play each other for the right to play the top two seeds.
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Exactly just think of the media discussing if Ohio St or Washington gets a 1st round bye.
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Apples and Oranges
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More like “Grapes and Grenades”. Primarily used as a scare tactic to frighten much needed reform in CFB playoffs. Few debate the poor judgement the NCAA used in over inflating the size of the current BB tourney, although I admit I don’t know the best number for basketball any longer as I don’t watch regular season, or playoff games. There are so many more schools and conferences that play relevant basketball so I would guess somewhere around 16 teams would be the right amount, but it might be 12 or 20. I am sure 64+ is way, way off. And yes, that 300-500% of fat is grotesque and does negate much of the regular season’s value.
The standard should be excellence so between 5-10% is where you could draw the line and make inclusion a strong standard while exempting mediocrity. With the ability to play 2-3 games a week over the stretch of a long, long, season you have the ability to get enough interactions to choose the right teams to give you the best contenders and have conference champs included. That is the same desire for CFB, but you need only 6-8 to get there.
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The same people who exercised that judgment hold sway over the college football playoffs, so what’s your point exactly, Mac?
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Actually, the NCAA does not “hold sway” over the CFB playoffs, but they do all other college sports. But even of they did, and I have stated this for years, there are natural, logistical barriers with football so expansion is limited by time between games, travel of much larger groups, and length of weeks to accommodate same, etc. Doesn’t mean it cannot be screwed up, but you cannot assume just the negative….this is the crown jewel. And you are not going to get 130 schools to shorten the season and give up home dates to allow unnecessary teams in that no one supports. Get to 6/8 and we are done. Makes no sense to not do the right thing just because someone might overindulge and drink too much water. Let’s get it right first, then defend plans for expansion.
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C’mon, Mac. You know better than that. You think Emmert personally was negotiating the last March Madness TV contract? Go take a look at the people who were and you’ll see plenty of familiar names.
They chase the money as far as they can go with it. That’s the only natural barrier that exists — in any sport in this country. CFB isn’t immune.
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We will never evaluate this from the same perspective because you believe everything is not only for sale, it always will be, while I think everything has it’s limit, and some things will never be negotiable. Given the starting philosophy difference, we can never reach the same point.
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That’s the lesson history teaches. For you to be proven correct, CFB would be swimming against the tide in a unique way.
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Well, it is a unique animal due to being the only sport that requires a minimum of one week (I say two weeks in this case) and, by far, the largest number of fans to move around on short notice. Logistics, my man, logistics. Not to mention, it is not the NCAA calling the shots here, it is the conferences, and there is only five of them….small guys don’t get a vote with those guys. Big Boss Jim not gonna sit in the room with the SunBelt dude.
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Minimum 1-2 weeks between games.
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It’s no different than the NFL or FCS in terms of time frames. Most other professional sports have even shorter time frames in their playoff structures in terms of moving from city to city. March Madness moves weekly, too.
And as far as the fans go, maybe you haven’t noticed, but CFB is trying to move from being a sport that appeals to largely regional support to a more national focus — because that’s where ESPN and the money are.
Delany’s gone from playoffs over my dead body to a four-team tourney, as long as they each win their conference, to a shrug. Yeah, he’s full of principles, that one is.
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The huge difference is the demand CFB fan bases will make for 20-30K tickets for those games. As you know, the Super Bowl is almost all Corporate seats, CFB fans have a learned behavior from bowls to expect inclusion. My opinion is the conference Fathers will not risk their wrath for obvious long term reasons.
Expanding CFB to have more national appeal is very smart, but the passion to spend money/time will be drawn from the long time fan/booster. Would someone in LA want to attend a NC game in the Rose Bowl between UGA and Oklahoma? Of course. It is an event, a happening, but you had better not deny that long term base their access after decades of waiting. It is different from pro sports, and comes from different roots.
FCS? Really? Max home attendance, around 15K. Average traveling group 300, maybe; playoffs 1000. It is why you can play every week, like the pros the crowd is a local one. You are not moving masses of people.
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Mac, you could make all those same arguments in the pre-BCS era, or the pre-CFP era. Yet here we are.
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One more thing to add, Mac. What has made the CFB postseason unique is the bowl structure. That’s being weakened with every passing change to the CFP. Knock the upper-tier bowls out of the way and you know what they say about nature abhorring a vacuum. Even if it’s a vacuum the P5 create themselves.
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A 4 loss team isn’t making any playoff that you will see, IMHO.
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The only thing that would make a regular season football game meaningless would be to guarantee a team they were going to the playoffs even if they lost a game.
I watch every UGA basketball game of the season. I love this team but they lost their tournament invite at Oakland.
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but that could potentially be the bast for a team like UGA, right?
SEC Championship game where the winner makes the playoffs and UGA is locked for that. Losing to tech doesnt matter for the playoffs. Losing a significant starter in that game could. Play your starters for a half and hope to get the W but keep it moving if you dont?
Or already got the Big 12 title sewed up and Bedlam is a meaningless game because Big 12 champion Oklahoma is in.
Right now they dont guarantee power 5 champs, but with expansion I could easily see that happening.
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Bama was just about guaranteed in this year they had to go .500 between Auburn and the SECCG.
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Basketball on TV has been ruined by the talking heads talking about the bubble and seeding starting on Jan.1 rather than the teams and games themselves. Even with only 4, that is also the focus in football now. If it goes to 8 it will totally drown any single regular season game. All that will be discussed is who is in and who is out, not how a team is playing.
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The talking heads are always going to be there, and they suck to listen to. Watch the games and then turn the TV off. You may hate it but the only thing that matters in college basketball is the NCAA tourney. Basketball teams are only remembered for their tournament success/failure.
Football is different. You are always going to want to beat your rivals no matter the record or postseason destination. The individual games matter more than what bowl that team won or lost. I don’t think expansion will hurt the regular season (it will probably make it more exciting) but I don’t see 8 teams on a yearly basis that deserve to win a national championship.
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When I watch college basketball I usually DVR the game and start the replay about an hour later (unless it’s a 9:00 PM). Fast forward through the commercials, talking heads and halftime and end up live for the last 5 minutes.
The only bad thing is that I peek ahead on twitter.
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When I watch basketball I like to get basic information like how many fouls a player has. I listen to the PA guy in the background hoping to hear while the TV announcers are talking about the bubble….in January! In football the announcers talk about the 4-6 teams with a chance. Expand to 8 and they will be talking about 10-12, none of who might be playing in whatever game you’re watching.
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Not a fan of expansion and having even a 3 loss football team sniffing around the playoff is pathetic. That said, this UGA hoops squad has no business going to any sort of tournament. Mark Fox has had 8 years. Utter mediocrity. Rip it up and start again.
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I actually think Mark Fox has been a decent BB HC given what he has had to work with at Georgia which has never been a BB powerhouse. (Although Tubby and Harrick proved you can have a winning program in Athens.) Basketball is a coach-intensive sport. Look at who UK has as its HC. If we want to compete for SEC and national titles we will have to hire someone who is competitive with Calipari. there aren’t many. We would have to open up the checkbook big-time and hire (read: steal) a top flight HC from a top flight program AND his recruiting pipeline. No big secret there. Will the suits at B-M and the AB spend the $$ to do that? NOT A CHANCE!!
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15 is the number of games played by AL and Clemson this year. With playoffs, where does that number go? One player mentioned he was tired. Wonder why?
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Wait’ll he gets to the NFL, he’ll wish he only had 15 games to play.
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Agree. Fox is another underachiever. If it weren’t for Frazier literally carrying the team they’d be painful to watch. If invited by some miracle or more likely a bribe, Fox would lose the first game of the tourney to some small school’s team that has it’s shit together.
The BB team actually has some decent talent. A good coach would get 20+ wins from that team and be an easy nod for a tourney invite.
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Why is it that every time I turn on a basketball game on TV, I’m watching a game like Kansas-Oklahoma right now, a “meaningless” game (KU assured a conference championship, OK going nowhere) where the stands are packed full and the crowd is totally amped?
Guess the 64-team field has killed the sport…or, maybe not. Maybe the upcoming playoff tournament has added another layer of excitement and anticipation to the sport’s season. In major-college football, we have nothing but exhibition games after the regular season, except for the four teams who’ll play meaningful games if they don’t mind cooling down for a month. I guess a few people are happy with that system. I’m not.
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Maybe it’s because you don’t watch much Georgia basketball.
Or maybe it’s ESPN’s fault.
I don’t know how long you’ve been following CBB, but if you think the current version adds another layer of regular season excitement to what I experienced in the ’70s and ’80s, you weren’t paying much attention back then.
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Been following CBB since the early 60’s, Senator, and I’m a bigger fan now than I was before the NCAA expanded its field in ’85. Part of my enjoyment of the CBB season is, of course, the tournament itself (I’ll be in Greenville for the regional next month).
If you’re groping for parallels between CBB and CFB, think about the game I watched last night, OU @ KU. Now think of a UGA football team in that same position: last week of the regular season, highly-ranked program on its way very soon to a meaningful postseason, home game against a longtime rival. You think that game wouldn’t generate at least as much interest as it does under today’s system? I believe the excitement level among our fans would be tremendous. Just hope I get that experience someday.
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So why aren’t Georgia fans hanging on the edge of their seats for the bball team? Is the Auburn game a sell out?
I’m not groping for parallels. I’m glad the playoffs have heightened your appreciation for regular season men’s basketball, but you’re not in a majority on that front, at least based on what I saw in the ACC in the mid-70s compared to nowadays.
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Does Georgia have a good team this year? Do we have a realistic chance of making the NCAA tournament, and playing for a national championship? If we did, I think we’d be packing the Stegosaurus whenever we got the chance, this time of the season.
I might not be in a majority on this board, but I might be in a majority of fans overall. See you in Greenville, maybe. I just wish major college football had any hope of offering its fans the same kind of experience that college basketball offers.
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You’ve missed the point of my post entirely.
Enjoy yourself in Greenville.
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Missing the points of your posts is not all that hard to do, Senator.
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Oh, come on now, Chop.
My post was about a mediocre Georgia basketball team still under consideration for a spot in the NCAA tournament. You switched the discussion to a Kansas team that’s currently ranked first in the country and in line to grab a number one seed in the tournament. Would Georgia football fans be excited to find their team in a similar situation? Certainly. Does that have anything to do with my hypothetical? Nope.
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I look at the Steg renovations as barely better than that abortion called the Nally Multi-Purpose Jeremy Pruitt Living Room Practice Area. They should have tried to reinvent the institution of basketball by building a new arena on the north edge of downtown. It certainly wouldn’t guarantee success, but the program needs an entire new identity. I always thought trying to piggy back off of the always popular (and walkable) downtown entertainment district could have made it a more appealing fan destination.
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Build an arena downtown and sell beer at the games. Problems solved.
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I don’t want a 32 team CFP, but I’m about to go blind from rolling my eyes back into my skull at every suggestion that we go back to the old bowl system. Letting newspapers crown 3-5 different national champions every year is by far the dumbest way a champion could ever been crowned IMO.
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